The Criminally Underappreciated: J.J. Hardy
I’ve shown my fondness for power hitting shortstops in this space befor; writing about Asdrubal Cabrera and Jhonny Peralta. Today the focus turns to one of the most overlooked players in fantasy thus far: J.J. Hardy.
Like Peralta, Hardy had success a few seasons ago then struggled with both performance (.292 wOBA in 2009) before seemingly righting the ship this season. Hardy is injury prone, which hasn’t helped his quest to get back to All-Star status. He was released after a moderately successful season, yet injury prone, season in Minnesota that saw him hit just six home runs in 375 plate appearances. In fact, before this season Hardy had just 17 dingers over his last 840 PA’s. That’s after back to back seasons with 26 and 24 respectively. The Twins traded him to Baltimore which looks to be the perfect landing place for the 28 year-old.
He’s missed a few weeks this season due to injury – did you expect something less? – but now that it appears he’s finally healthy he’s putting up numbers that will place him near the top of the shortstop rankings. Camden Yards is a great hitter’s park and Hardy is taking full advantage. In June, his one fully healthy month, Hardy hit .362/.409/.686/.324 (ISO) with 9 home runs and a .468 wOBA. Obviously he can’t keep that up for a full season, but it shows what he can do when healthy, especially in that ballpark. Currently Hardy is ranked 13th among shortstops in Yahoo! leages after only 237 at bats, and his .361 wOBA would be 4th in baseball if he qualified. His 13 home runs put him 4th at his position, just three behind Troy Tulowitzki. As our own Mike Axisa pointed out nearly a month ago, Hardy is hitting fly balls at a career high rate (49%) which translates into good things in Camden Yards.
The ZiPS projections have Hardy hitting .269/.323/.443 with 8 home runs and 26 RBI from this point forward. That would leave him with a .349 wOBA, which would have ranked 4th among all shortstops last season. Currently Hardy is owned in just 67% of leagues. That’s a crime. Yes, he gets hurt, but with a position as scarcely populated with good players as shortstop that number deserves to be much higher.
Erik writes for DraysBay and has also written for Bloomberg Sports. Follow him on Twitter @ehahmann.
Hardy was traded, not released (from Wikipedia): “On December 9, 2010, Hardy was acquired by the Orioles from the Twins, along with utility infielder Brendan Harris and $500,000, for minor league pitchers Brett Jacobson and Jim Hoey.”
Looks like a steal.
Wow, just noticed his FB% this season is 49%!!! Up from 35% last year, for example. Seems he’s changed his approach.
He’s said it himself.
According to Hardy this season, in Minnesota, he was told by his coaches to be a slap-hitter and cut down the power swing to make contact and hit it on the ground. They envisioned him as a #2 or #6-7 hitter who made gritty ABs by fouling off pitches and legging out hits. This year Oriole coaches in Spring Training asked him, “What are you doing? Why are you trying to be a slap-hitter? Drive the ball more. You’ve got too much natural power to be a singles hitter.” So, he’s literally been trying to hit the ball in the air more this season. And, we see the results right now.
Also, another point, he probably definitely benefits from hitting at Camden Yards but subjectively, I didn’t think there was a difference. He seemed to hit as well on the road, so I check his stats, and at least power-wise (which is where most might regard Camden’s effect holds the most benefit) he’s been equally effective away as he is at home.
This is typical Twins nonsense and not at all surprising. They did the same thing with David Ortiz back in the day. I think part of it is just misguided organizational approach, and part of it is they know they can’t afford to retain power hitters and discourage anybody from hitting too many.
They may not have wins, but they have grission, damnit!
Minnesota always does that to its players. They as a team approach try to limit a players ceiling while also minimizing his floor. They do not want talented players, they want consistently average, reliable performers. It is a shame.
I just traded Ryan Zimmerman, Coco Crisp and Hardy for Youkilis and Crawford in a league where I have enough speed, 2 behind leader in HR and need lots of runs/decent RBI help. I had to do this trade right? I have Hanley at SS already. I just hate that I’ve recently traded away Hardy and Morse, two of my sleepers
Meh, I don’t think the BA is sustainable with low LD & GB rates and his HR/FB ratio is higher than his career norm so I don’t think he’ll keep up this pace.